Experiment

We are doing an experiment. Our aim is to find out if growing a hydroponic plantation above HDB flats will lower the temperature of the flats. We substitude the flats into plastic containers.

Materials needed
- 2 container of equal sizes
- 1 small hydroponic plantation
- 4 pieces of white paper
- Blue tack

Steps:

1. a slit is cut in both containers. this is done so we can measure the temperature.
2. a bluetack is placed to cover the hole so as to prevent air in the container from escaping.
3. placed a white sheet of paper on top and below the containers
4. placed the plants we grown on one of the containers
5. measure the temperature of the two containers with a thermometer daily

This is our experiment:


The container with the plant is called Container A and the other container is called Container B.
To keep the experiment fair and get reliable results, we kept everything constant except that Container A has a small hydroponic plantation while Container B do not have.


Our hypothesis is the container with the small hydroponic vegetation have a lower temperature than the container without the hydroponic vegetation.

Data collected:

We concluded that Conatiner A has a lower temperature than Container B as the plants take in carbon dioxide during photosynthesis and replace it with oxygen. Container B has a higher temperature as carbon dioxide traps heat and the container gets warmer. However in the morning the temperature of both containers are very similar their temperatures are very close. IN the afternoon where there is a stronger sunlight, the plants photosynthesis and absorb more carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouse gases, so if every building in Singapore has a hydroponic vegetation on their rooftop, there will be lesse carbon dioxide and lower down the temperature. This is also a solution for Global warming.

Difficulties faced while planting most of the plants died thus we used green beans for our experiment.

Credit: http://www.usc.edu/CSSF/History/2004/Projects/J0915.pdf

Should Singapore encourage more hydroponic vegetation?

This is our survey

Click here to take survey
We would like to thank you for your time to do our survey we really appreciate it.

We have analyze the results for the past 2 months(February to March). The results are 87.5% of the people said that Singapore should increase in hydroponic vegetation while 12.5% of the people who did the survey disagreed. Their reasons are mainly that they do not understand the meaning of hydroponic. From this survey we also concluded that many knows that most of our vegetables are import from other countries.

The results are shown in a pie chart.


 

We did this survey was because we wanted to find out how many people feel that Singapore should produce our own food. Since Singapore can produce our own water why don't we do the
same for food?

Credits: http://www.surveymonkey.com/

Literature Review

“If more vegetables are produced within the urban environment, it would mean that less vegetables need to be imported from another location. This would mean less transport requirement to bring the vegetables to the city and this in turn, would mean less carbon footprints added to the environment. In today’s landscape where the world faces consequences of global warming, urban farming would certainly be environmentally advantageous.”

Lee Sing Kong
Ø Horticulturist
Ø Interests are in agro technology, urban forestry and plant tissue culture
Ø Involved in greening Singapore since 1975
Ø Joined the National Institution of Singapore and embarked on the research on hydroponics in 1991
Ø Developed the aeroponics technology and adapted it for the production of temperate vegetables in the tropics.
Ø Received many awards for this technology
Ø Provides consultancy in aeroponics and urban forestry

Research Interest:

• Agrotechnology
  
• Urban forestry
  
• Involved in greening in Singapore since 1975

Email: singkong.lee@nie.edu.sg

For more information on Professor Lee you can visit these websites:

http://www.a-star.edu.sg/AwardsScholarships/PresidentsScienceandTechnologyAwards/PastNationalScienceTechnologyAwardsWinners/NSTAWinners2000/WinnerCitationAProfLeeSingKong/tabid/623/Default.aspx

We soley research on Prof Lee because he firmly believes that we should grow more hydroponic plants and he is a Singaporean like everyone of us thus he knows about how singapore's weather/climate is like.